Blurb:

Sam Becker, a horse whisperer, agrees to take one last job before retiring to his Texas ranch. It’s clear as soon as he meets the Taylor family in Kentucky that he’s in for a challenge. What he doesn’t expect is the way his own wounds reopen. He never really dealt with the suicide of his mentally ill wife, and he won’t be able to ignore that hurt forever.

Joshua Taylor and his horse, Calla, were a force to be reckoned with on the eventing circuit until an accident ended their careers. Most of the pain is on the inside, however, and Sam knows those injuries are the slowest to mend. Sam’s unique methods help Calla and, surprisingly, Josh, but he’s still lost without riding. Their feelings for each other come hard and fast, and Josh starts his first steps of recovery, but Sam needs to return to Texas eventually. Even if Josh is able to move past the accident, they’ll still have a long and difficult journey to make before they can be together.

My View:

I totally have a thing for horses, and rode for all my adolescence – so show me a book with romance and horses and I am a very happy reader. I was so excited to read this as well as Tia Fielding is a new to me author.

I really liked how the book started, and felt that I got to know the main characters quite well before there was any suggestion of romance, which given the circumstances of how Sam and Josh meet felt totally right for me.

I also liked that neither Sam’s marriage or bisexuality was trivialised , and that Josh didn’t feel threatened by it.

I am happy to suspend some belief in romance as well, except when it comes to elements of mental illness, and there was a touch of the magic penis syndrome here, after the good start, getting to know the characters the romance, which I felt was going in a strong and emotionally challenging way seemed to go on auto pilot.

The book seemed to drag in the latter part as well, and I found that in the last 20% , when the characters should have been really analysing what the future was going to be ( or at least vocalising it) a rather glib ending was added instead.

Overall I though that this was a book with unfulfilled potential.

Links

I would like to thank the publisher for providing me with the eARC of this title in exchange for my honest opinion.

Farewell Giveaway
I have a number of paperbacks, most of which are signed, to giveaway. Over the between now (11 Mar 2017) and 31 Mar 2017, every comment on the blog (this post and all other new posts), will be entered to win 1 of these paperbacks. There are also some misc swag items, so there will be a few packs of these to give away as well.

Thank you so much for your support over the last 4 years. Prism will be closing its doors on 1 April 2017. All content will remain available, but no new content will appear after 31 Mar 2017. As such all request forms have been turned off. Again Thank you,